Christina Gleason's Blog

Posted by Christina Gleason

Last week, I wrote a web site review about the online community at PatientsLikeMe: Online Support for Abuse Victims. Although I have no personal experience with abuse, I am a member of the site because of my Generalized Anxiety Disorder , and I have made acquaintances with a number of people who have suffered various types of abuse.

When I asked people to take a look at the site review, it was brought to my attention that some people dislike the term abuse victim, and instead prefer to identify themselves as abuse survivors.

Do you consider victim and survivor to be interchangeable? Is survivor an attempt to sanitize one's abuse history and make it more politically correct? Or is there a distinction between the two?

I can see making a distinction between past and ongoing abuse. Perhaps someone whose abuse is in the past might identify as an abuse survivor, while someone who is still suffering abuse might identify as an abuse victim. The only problem with that is that people who are being abused may not recognise the behavior as abuse, and therefore abuse victim would only be a label applied to them by other people.

Perhaps it has more to do with a state of mind. Someone who has reconciled their abuse as being in the past, someone who is far along in the healing process may be more likely to call himself or herself an abuse survivor. Someone who has not been able to put their abuse in the past, who may still be experiencing flashbacks, may be more likely to call himself or herself an abuse victim.

I would love to hear feedback concerning this terminology, and I will consider it when writing new articles and editing old ones.

Posted by Christina Gleason

In case you hadn't heard, this is National Men's Health Week, which purports to "heighten awareness of preventable health problems and encourage early detection and treatment of disease among men and boys."

While the organizers of this awareness week may have had things like prostate cancer and heart disease in mind, I think that varying types of abuse are preventable health problems that should not be ignored.

Substance Abuse and Men's Health

Substance abuse among men can lead to many different physical health problems affecting the heart, liver, brain and more. I would urge all men (and women, of course) who are struggling with substance abuse issues to use Men's Health Week as the mark on the calendar where you start your recovery.

Relationship Abuse and Men's Health

While the media doesn't give as much attention to male victims of domestic violence as they do to female victims, husband abuse (and boyfriend abuse) is a very real threat to men's health. If you know of or suspect that one of your male loved ones is being abused, use this week as your motivation to extend your support to him, and support him in getting the help he needs to stop the abuse.

Happy National Men's Health Month!